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Debian vs MySQL on Ubuntu comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 15, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.0
Debian's open-source platform cuts costs by eliminating fees, supporting less powerful hardware, and enhancing efficiency with minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
3.9
Automation significantly saved time, improved compliance, and reduced costs with increased speed and minimal personnel required.
There were direct cost savings since Debian has no licensing fees, and we did not require paid support, so it saved us considerable money.
Embedded Linux / BSP Engineer at Veethree
We were able to save a substantial amount by using Linux instead of Windows and spending a lot of money on Windows licenses.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
I have seen a return on investment; specifically, the cost is around zero because there is no need for a license, and since my whole team uses Debian, we are fine with the number of employees needed.
DevOps Technology Lead at TriStratus Ltd
The audit trail MySQL provided also meant zero untracked data losses in production.
AI Engineer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
I have seen a return on investment with MySQL on Ubuntu because I can say that everything we can do here is save money and time, and even we are using a small number of team to handle it.
Senior QA Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
I have indeed seen a return on investment, particularly in time saved, as using MySQL on Ubuntu has proven to be 15 to 20% quicker than building a Postgres database.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Debian users mainly utilize community resources for support, with minimal dependence on official channels or third-party services.
Sentiment score
4.9
MySQL on Ubuntu offers robust community support, reliable documentation, and paid services, ensuring positive customer service experiences.
We rely on community resources for support, such as documentation, forums, and asking questions online.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Whenever I had a query, I used Google to search for it and found very helpful information from public platforms.
Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
While it does not have traditional paid customer support like some commercial distributions, the Debian community and documentation are very strong.
Embedded Linux / BSP Engineer at Veethree
I used AWS support, and they are very quick to respond.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Whenever we can, we call the support and they fix the problem right away.
IT Administrator at a university with 51-200 employees
GitHub Copilot provides substantial information that helps when encountering errors.
Erp Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Debian is scalable and reliable in cloud environments, offering flexibility and efficient resource management for diverse organizational needs.
Sentiment score
6.4
MySQL on Ubuntu efficiently handles increased loads with strong query performance, clustering, and cost-effectiveness, though scaling requires planning.
We don't spin up new Debian instances arbitrarily.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
As the growth of our infrastructure is required, we can host many Debian servers.
Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
We decided to use Debian because we needed a more stable and predictable base, especially for long-running systems where frequent changes or upgrades could cause issues.
Embedded Linux / BSP Engineer at Veethree
When running on EC2 instances, for example, I can scale it from zero to 10,000 machines or even higher.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Clustering is useful because that helps with high availability and scalability.
CEO at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
MySQL on Ubuntu provides excellent reliability for scalability needs.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.6
Debian is praised for stability and reliability, though some users note slow updates and older package versions.
Sentiment score
7.9
MySQL on Ubuntu delivers stable, reliable performance with consistent uptime, efficiently managing concurrent workflows and diverse automation jobs.
I rate Debian an eight out of ten because it excels in stability, reliability, and package management, which are very important for long-running production systems.
Embedded Linux / BSP Engineer at Veethree
That long-term support has helped me and my customers by being stable and running well.
Embedded Developer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
In my experience, Debian is very stable.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
MySQL on Ubuntu uses the InnoDB engine, which has ACID properties integrated.
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
In real-world production use, it has been consistently proven across startups, mid-sized companies, and large organizations as well.
Senior QA Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
MySQL on Ubuntu is stable; both the MySQL component and the Ubuntu component are very stable, popular, and actively maintained.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Room For Improvement

Debian requires improvements in package management, UI, onboarding, release cycle, network management, and better documentation to enhance user experience.
MySQL on Ubuntu struggles with large JSON data, requires scaling strategies, and needs better security, monitoring, and AI integration.
I believe security on Debian is top-notch due to its long history and the many individuals and organizations that rely on it, meaning there are many eyes on it.
Founder at a media company with 1-10 employees
If Debian had a memory-based distribution, similar to Alpine, that would be great, as we could get benefits in terms of memory or embedded systems.
DevOps Technology Lead at TriStratus Ltd
Debian was easy to set up.
Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Scaling out is much harder to do. Even though a master-slave setup can help maintain a real-time backup or offload queries, achieving true horizontal scaling with numerous nodes at once can be tricky with MySQL on Ubuntu.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
A more self-tuning approach to index optimization and query execution would reduce that burden, particularly for teams that focus more on application logic than database administration.
AI Engineer at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
The only area where I would say I have seen potential for improvement is occasional slowness, but I cannot really attribute it to the product; it could also be the design of the database and the queries.
CEO at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Setup Cost

Debian is cost-effective due to no licensing fees, making it ideal for enterprises compared to alternatives like Windows.
MySQL on Ubuntu is cost-effective, reducing expenses in licensing, setup, maintenance, hardware, and operational costs for enterprises.
My experience with Debian's pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that it is all free.
IT Support Manager at a educational organization with 5,001-10,000 employees
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that Debian is free, so there is no price.
SRE at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
As long as I remain within the limit of that credit, I can create machines as much as I want without exceeding the monthly limit.
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees
Since MySQL on Ubuntu is quite lean, it results in low operational costs, making it favorable from a pricing perspective.
Cloud Ops Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
We can reduce licensing cost saving with MySQL on Ubuntu because there is no cost.
Senior QA Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

Debian delivers stability, performance, and security with vast support and resources, ideal for enterprise environments and web services.
MySQL on Ubuntu offers reliability, performance, scalability, security, easy installation, low resources, and extensive community support for data management.
Debian's stability helps me in my daily work because my work relies on stability; I'm trying to deploy production workloads, and Debian offers that stability for me.
DevOps Technology Lead at TriStratus Ltd
Debian has kept my workflow secure by maintaining system stability with day-to-day or monthly updates with security patches, securing the system from external attacks.
Cloud Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Debian has positively impacted my organization primarily in cost-efficiency, with on-premises hardware running faster and cheaper.
IT Support Manager at a educational organization with 5,001-10,000 employees
It extends with volume very well. Most RDBMS don't scale very well, but this one scales very well and has been very reliable and highly available.
CEO at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
By putting it in MySQL on Ubuntu, even if the node went down, the database would come back up.
Chief Data Strategy and Governance Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Since our EC2 instance is deployed in a virtual private network with MySQL on Ubuntu installed, it is protected from unauthorized access and use, and we have also encrypted the data in MySQL.
Senior Data Engineer at a transportation company with 501-1,000 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Debian
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
MySQL on Ubuntu
Ranking in Operating Systems (OS) for Business
18th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Operating Systems (OS) for Business category, the mindshare of Debian is 6.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of MySQL on Ubuntu is 0.2%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Operating Systems (OS) for Business Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Debian6.2%
MySQL on Ubuntu0.2%
Other93.6%
Operating Systems (OS) for Business
 

Featured Reviews

Badal Shrivastav - PeerSpot reviewer
Embedded Linux / BSP Engineer at Veethree
Reliable platform has supported long-term on-prem deployments and predictable OTA updates
If I consider how Debian can be improved, it could be more accessible in making newer software versions available for users who need recent features while still maintaining default stable behavior. While backports help, the workflow could be streamlined. The release cycle can feel slow for rapidly evolving tools, and better guidance around mixing stable, backports, and testing would help. Regarding hardware support, Debian can be improved by supporting multiple BSPs, making it more versatile in the embedded domain. Hardware support for new devices can sometimes lag behind, which is understandable given Debian's focus on stability. Clearer guidance on handling newer hardware or firmware would be beneficial.
Pranay Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior software developer at Simplifyvms
Reliable data platform has improved uptime and reduced infrastructure and licensing costs
MySQL on Ubuntu is an open-source relational database management system that stores data in tables and columns. It is free, open-source, and very stable for servers with easy installation for our production application. MySQL on Ubuntu demonstrates excellent stability and works very effectively with our Node.js backend. It is memory and disk efficient while providing regular security and bug updates. From an organizational perspective, MySQL on Ubuntu offers significant advantages. The cost is excellent since it is open-source with no licensing fees. The reliability it provides is outstanding with minimal crashes and exceptional stability. The improved application performance is notable with fast query searches and superior indexing properties. MySQL on Ubuntu saves considerable time and reduces operational costs through decreased database licensing fees as an open-source solution. We achieve a thirty to sixty percent reduction in infrastructure costs. System uptime is excellent in our stable Linux environment, reaching 99.9 percent uptime. Application performance improvements are substantial, delivering twenty-five to forty percent faster API responses when queries are optimized according to our needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
20%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Construction Company
25%
Healthcare Company
10%
University
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Debian?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that Debian is free, so there is no price.
What needs improvement with Debian?
Debian is already really great, so there is nothing to complain about regarding improvements. I do not have anything else to add about needed improvements.
What is your primary use case for Debian?
I have been using Debian for around 10 years now. My main use case for Debian is that it's a regular Linux operating system with many use cases and system servers. One specific example of how I use...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for MySQL on Ubuntu?
Regarding pricing and licensing, I use the free tier, so I don't know much about pricing.
What needs improvement with MySQL on Ubuntu?
Several pain points regarding MySQL on Ubuntu come to mind. First, its handling of large JSON documents was sometimes cumbersome. We stored structured financial data and occasionally had to denorma...
What is your primary use case for MySQL on Ubuntu?
MySQL on Ubuntu served as the primary storage and management system for structured financial data extracted from documents in our financial mapping system. We stored trial balances, entries, accoun...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Debian 12
No data available
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Debian vs. MySQL on Ubuntu and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.